16th Amendment: Govt to wait on full verdict

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the Supreme Court's verdict on the 16th constitutional amendment proved that the country's judiciary is independent.

Talking to her cabinet colleagues at the cabinet meeting at the secretariat, she asked them not to express resentment over the SC verdict, said meeting sources.

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Emerging from the meeting, Law Minister Anisul Huq said the government would decide about its next course of action on the verdict after receiving the full text of the judgment.

“I don't understand how the court upheld the constitutional amendment incorporated by a military regime although the original constitution of 1972 empowered parliament to remove Supreme Court judges,” he told reporters.

The minister said constitutions of most of the democratic and developed nations have provisions like that of Article 96 of the 1972 constitution to remove judges.

Meanwhile, the ruling Awami League said it would come up with a reaction after going through the full text of the SC judgment.

“We will make a statement after going through the full text of the verdict,” AL General Secretary Obaidul Quader told journalists at the Central Shaheed Minar after paying respect to musicologist and litterateur late Prof Karunamoy Goswami.

The BNP described the apex court's verdict as “people's victory”.

“The Supreme Court declared the 16th amendment illegal. We think the court's decision is a victory of the people,” BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said at a press conference at the party's Nayapaltan headquarters.

“The government's plot to take the judiciary in its grip has failed through the apex court's verdict,” he added.